20821: Esser: Haiti in a Caricom limbo (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Trinidad & Tobago Express
http://www.trinidadexpress.com

March 26, 2004

Haiti in a Caricom limbo
By RICKEY SINGH

Prime Minister Patrick Manning, right, speaks with Prime Minister of
St Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves while leaving the
Eastern Caribbean Central Bank building in Basseterre, St Kitts,
yesterday. -AP photo

BASSETERRE-Caribbean Community leaders yesterday went to their
two-day Inter-Sessional Conference here in the capital of St Kitts,
signalling doubts about any recognition of the interim Haitian regime
in Port-au-Prince by the 15-member regional economic integration
movement.

With the governance crisis situation in Haiti at the top of a packed
12-item agenda, there was a noticeable absence of the division
anticipated over the likely arrival for the meeting of Haiti's
interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue.

As it turned out, amid all the speculations, Latortue had failed to
repudiate his earlier announcement of suspending Haiti's relations
with Caricom or his embrace last weekend of armed rebels as
"liberators". And, therefore, his request to attend the Caricom
meeting could not have been entertained. It would not have been
"politically correct" to have any Haitian official at the meeting
when the issue of recognition of a post-Aristide regime in
Port-au-Prince was not previously taken.

Latortue's chance of being given an informal audience by Caricom
leaders, without recognition of the regime in Haiti, was dashed by
his surprising embrace last weekend at a political rally in his
hometown of Gonaives of armed rebels as "liberators" and "freedom
fighters" in ousting President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power on
February 29.

Immediately following the low-key, hour-long opening ceremony at the
auditorium of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, the leaders moved
into a coordinated strategy for hosting of the 2007 Cricket World Cup
Series, before switching to the intense issues of the post-Aristide
situation in Haiti.

The Express was informed by conference sources that the leaders'
deliberations coincided with renewed behind-the-scenes pressures from
President George Bush's administration for Caricom's recognition of
the interim Haitian regime of which former Chief Justice Boniface
Alexandre is President and Latortue Prime Minister.

But neither Community Secretary General Edwin Carrington, nor Prime
Minister PJ Patterson of Jamaica-who yesterday handed over the
chairmanship, temporarily, to host Prime Minister, Denzil Douglas of
St Kitts and Nevis-would confirm that Haiti's membership in the
Community would now remain vacant pending new free and fair elections
within two years.

The final and decisive decision was expected by last evening or to be
announced today before a resumed plenary session.

But to judge from the applause, Prime Minister Patterson may have
reflected a strong sentiment of his colleagues assembled around the
conference table when he told the opening session:

"We may be small in size and we make no claim to military power but
our influence in the hemisphere cannot be underestimated...And I
believe that there cannot be a lasting and permanent solution to the
crisis in Haiti without Caricom being involved."

The Community would, therefore, remain engaged on Haiti, without
compromising fundamental principles of democratic governance to which
it remains guided, stressed Patterson.
.